HANGZHOU, Aug. 12 (Xinhua) -- The ache in Dong Jianhai's legs was a warning he had learned to trust. At 58, the resident of Zhoushan, a city consisting of islands off the coast of east China's Zhejiang Province, knew it meant a storm was coming.
The day before Typhoon Dolphin, the 13th typhoon of the year, made landfall in Zhejiang, Dong spent the whole afternoon preparing for it, checking anchor points for vessels seeking shelter and making sure each ship was securely fastened, just as he had done hundreds of times before.
For more than three decades, Dong has seen the sea in nearly every mood. He began his career as one of Zhejiang's first professional salvage divers after earning his national diving certificate in 1991. Young, strong and ambitious, he was eager to make a name for himself underwater. Then an accident changed the course of his life.
During a salvage operation in 1994, Dong suffered severe decompression sickness, a potentially fatal condition caused by rapid changes in pressure after diving. Two months of difficult treatment saved his life, but when he finally left the hospital, he could no longer walk as he once had.
For a diver whose life had been bound to the ocean, the injury seemed to mark the end of a career. But Dong's bond with the sea endured, taking a different form.
"People told me my diving days were over, and maybe they were right about my body," he said. "But no one could convince me that my journey was over. If I couldn't go down into the water anymore, I would find another way to keep my promise."
Dong began a new chapter by bringing together people with diving and salvage experience to form his own rescue team. Over time, the team became a familiar presence along the coast, responding to sunken vessels, maritime accidents and calls to recover those lost at sea.
He would arrive at rescue sites with a cane in hand, helping divers prepare their equipment, secure hoses and ropes, and watching closely as they disappeared beneath the surface. Though he could no longer descend into the depths himself, he knew the pressure, darkness, currents below -- and the razor-thin margin for error -- as well as anyone else.
When Dong could not be at the scene, he directed operations remotely. His cell phone stayed with him around the clock, and over the years his number became a trusted lifeline for people along the coast.
The calls came in for all kinds of emergencies: a vessel that needed salvaging, a missing diver, someone who had fallen into the water, a ship that had run aground, or people stranded on an island by a storm.
The team has also taken part in large-scale maritime operations. In one case, it participated in the salvage and subsequent repair of a 10,000-tonne cargo ship. In another, it was called to assist a 300,000-tonne Panama-registered oil tanker that had gone off course and run aground.
For Dong, the hardest calls were not always those that came in the middle of a rescue. Sometimes it was the quiet voice on the other end of the phone, telling him that another life had been lost at sea.
Such calls meant there was no longer a life to save. But Dong knew the mission was not necessarily over. For him, and for the families waiting on shore, there was still one final task: bringing their loved ones home.
Over the past 30 years, Dong has taken part in or directed the salvage of more than 120 sunken vessels, while his team has recovered more than 80 bodies.
The work is demanding and often dangerous, but Dong has never seen it as something to be carried out for a reward.
"When someone loses their life at sea, and you can bring them back to their family, that is not just a job," Dong said. "It is simply the right thing to do as a human being."
To Dong, it was all part of a promise he had made to the sea long ago -- one he could not easily let go of, even though he could not have known what it would eventually cost him.
That promise has taken different forms over the course of a life intertwined with the water: the boy who lost loved ones to the sea, the diver who ventured beneath the waves, the survivor of a near-fatal underwater accident, and the man who refused to give up helping others.
Typhoon Dolphin made landfall the following evening after Dong felt his leg ache. The seasoned rescuer was out before dawn, leaning on his cane as he moved between harbors, checking vessels and directing his crew while strong winds swept the coast.
For most people, a storm is a reason to stay ashore. For Dong, it is a reason to set out. Somewhere beyond the waves, someone may be waiting -- for rescue, for hope, or simply for a way home. ■
